MySpace: We

[Slimy]

As if we needed more proof of MySpace?s intolerance of outside development, News Corp. chief operating officer Peter Chernin told investors at an industry conference today that since much of YouTube?s traffic comes from MySpace, it?s time to cut out the middle man. Chernin estimated that around 60-70% of YouTube?s traffic comes from MySpace, and as a result he wants to ramp up MySpace Video, giving users less incentive to look elsewhere. But while the 60% figure might not be totally accurate, MySpace is definitely a catalyst for YouTube?s growth - they actually reported a dip in traffic when MySpace temporarily disabled YouTube embeds at the end of 2005 (they were forced to allow them again after a user revolt).

But it?s not just YouTube - Chernin expressed distaste for all the services that are feeding the MySpace beast: ?If you look at virtually any Web 2.0 application, whether its YouTube, whether it?s Flickr, whether it?s Photobucket?almost all of them are really driven off the back of MySpace, there?s no reason why we can?t build a parallel business.? While I?m not convinced that Flickr gained success on the back of MySpace, Photobucket almost certainly did - ImageShack isn?t mentioned, but it also owes much of its success to America?s leading social network.

The sentiments indicate a very worrying trend: MySpace has stated its intention to clone the best tools, and Chermin believes that MySpace can equal or better the third party tools with in-house products. This is such a ridiculous strategy that it?s not even worth contemplating. MySpace?s openness to third party extensions (MySpace layouts, MySpace codes) is one of its most popular attributes - squashing that ecosystem may provide short term benefits, but it will ultimately harm them in the long term.

Chernin?s sentiments also confirm our assumptions about the recent MySpace update, a reaction to the Flash-based MySpace hack which had the side effect of breaking many MySpace add-ons. With absolutely warning for developers, it was assumed that MySpace simply didn?t care about the problem - an opinion that was confirmed today. Incidentally, Robert Yeager at Cooqy just emailed me to say he has once again found a workaround to the issue, one that will only be broken if MySpace bans external widgets altogether - for some, it?s not all that hard to imagine.

However, the statement runs counter to MySpace?s recent move to sell tracks through MySpace Music: in that instance, they chose to partner with Snocap on their MySpace music player, rather than crushing the startup. The picture is not so clear with the new MySpace slideshows widget - some of my sources claim that it was developed by the folks at Slide, while others think it was created by MySpace itself.

There are literally thousands external tools plugging in to MySpace these days - among them BubbleSnaps? picture generator, Finetune?s music player, Trakzor?s MySpace tracker, MyChingo?s audio comments tool, Snapvine?s voice comments widget, PollPub?s MySpace polls, EQO?s MySpace message boards and many more besides. All of these widgets work on other networks, but the truth is that MySpace accounts for the majority of their users. As mentioned hundreds of times on Mashable, the top sites for widget embeds include Xanga, Piczo, hi5, Blogger and Windows Live Spaces, but all of these sites added together couldn?t equal the market provided by the MySpace beast. Even so, it seems that the web?s future will be widgetized, whether MySpace play the game or not.

Source

[Simon Veteran]

Why is every single company trying to squish the other out? We have Apple wanting to be in every corner of your house (which they actually said, albeit in different words), we have Microsoft trying to be the only OS for anything, mainly trying to take over the server market, and trying to take out Google and the iPod at the same time, we have MySpace doing this, and all of the other smaller, yet great, services are being abandoned. I'm starting to see the point of antitrust cases; you can't force people into your services. Why is it happening anyway?

We can't let smaller services obsolete; if this stuff keeps up, Neowin users will be forced onto Microsoft forums, without support for Linux, Firefox, or Neowin-branded software, and instead of becoming one in 150,000, we become one in 10,000,000. There's no reason for it; monopolies like the ones being created today are unfair

[vip]

IN a way it's true ... but I don't use myspace and I hear about most of those sites by word of mouth, via IRC or in real life. My wife uses myspace, I hate it. It needs a revamp, and has horrible speed issues. Myspace is like the new AOL ... AOL was the **** back in the day, I loved the chatrooms and meeting people ... then it got bogged down with ignorant kids and spammers ....

edit: @ simon ... it's all about the money man. anything to get a quick buck!

[sanctified Veteran]

MySpace is the caouse of others popularity? Maybe, at the beggining. But how much of myspace popularity has been built around all the services that support them?

Arrogance at its best!

[bangbang023 Veteran]

MySpace is the caouse of others popularity? Maybe, at the beggining. But how much of myspace popularity has been built around all the services that support them?

Arrogance at its best!

I think they have a point, though. These services have always existed, but really boomed once MySpace users started to implement them in order to compensate for shortcomings in the MySpace services.

[whitebread]

Why is every single company trying to squish the other out? We have Apple wanting to be in every corner of your house (which they actually said, albeit in different words), we have Microsoft trying to be the only OS for anything, mainly trying to take over the server market, and trying to take out Google and the iPod at the same time, we have MySpace doing this, and all of the other smaller, yet great, services are being abandoned. I'm starting to see the point of antitrust cases; you can't force people into your services. Why is it happening anyway?

We can't let smaller services obsolete; if this stuff keeps up, Neowin users will be forced onto Microsoft forums, without support for Linux, Firefox, or Neowin-branded software, and instead of becoming one in 150,000, we become one in 10,000,000. There's no reason for it; monopolies like the ones being created today are unfair

I believe the saying is something to the effect of "it's not enough for me to win, you must lose."

[fuBar.]

Why is every single company trying to squish the other out? We have Apple wanting to be in every corner of your house (which they actually said, albeit in different words), we have Microsoft trying to be the only OS for anything, mainly trying to take over the server market, and trying to take out Google and the iPod at the same time, we have MySpace doing this, and all of the other smaller, yet great, services are being abandoned. I'm starting to see the point of antitrust cases; you can't force people into your services. Why is it happening anyway?

We can't let smaller services obsolete; if this stuff keeps up, Neowin users will be forced onto Microsoft forums, without support for Linux, Firefox, or Neowin-branded software, and instead of becoming one in 150,000, we become one in 10,000,000. There's no reason for it; monopolies like the ones being created today are unfair

Well said.

As long as a hundred of us remain alive we will never be subject to tyrannical dominion because it is not for glory or riches or honours that we fight, but for freedom alone which no worthy man loses except with his life.

-Declaration of Arbroath, 1320

[sanctified Veteran]

I think they have a point, though. These services have always existed, but really boomed once MySpace users started to implement them in order to compensate for shortcomings in the MySpace services.

Oh I see. So the solution is to isolate yourself and turn your back the services that, symbiotically I should say, support you.

Logical.

[Jase]

Sure.. they will

without youtube, imageshack.. do you really think myspace would host the images and flash... hell no.. there servers would go pop each week..

[Bawx]

I'm never going to stop using YouTube. I don't care if other sites come up, YouTube just has that feel of quality and things I like. Just the name YouTube makes me think good stuff. MySpace makes me cringe, even though I use it. The way Google use to feel.

[Chris Allen Veteran]

Sure.. they will

without youtube, imageshack.. do you really think myspace would host the images and flash... hell no.. there servers would go pop each week..

They don't already? :rolleyes:

[bangbang023 Veteran]

Oh I see. So the solution is to isolate yourself and turn your back the services that, symbiotically I should say, support you.

Logical.

Why not if you feel you can do it better and keep customers in house? It's the same thing Best Buy has done with it's Home Theater installation teams. They had other companies doing the work and supporting the store sales, but felt a better job could be done in house and would be beneficial to the company as a whole.

[sanctified Veteran]

Sure.. they will

without youtube, imageshack.. do you really think myspace would host the images and flash... hell no.. there servers would go pop each week..

Exacvtly my point. MySpace needs those services

[Jase]

They don't already? :rolleyes:

what go pop? yes they do but if they use their own system, it would put soo much pressure on the server..

i have seen myspace video and its garbage, also the images you can post have to be resized.

[sanctified Veteran]

Why not if you feel you can do it better and keep customers in house? It's the same thing Best Buy has done with it's Home Theater installation teams. They had other companies doing the work and supporting the store sales, but felt a better job could be done in house and would be beneficial to the company as a whole.

Agreed, but lets analize the psyche described in this article. Those words are a product of arrogance, not objectiveness. I dont want to even try to imagine how much data are stored in all those services TOGETHER that is added to myspace everyday. I think that they are getting quite illogical here.

[bangbang023 Veteran]

Working for Rupert Murdoch, you have to be arrogant. Having a hugely successful social network portal at your hands is only going to further enable that attitude. Truth is, they see a means of being able to make more money by keeping people viewing MySpace pages with MySpace banner ads instead of leaving the site and then, hopefully, coming back. At the same time, they better expect to need to triple their hardware and bandwidth if they want to stay online.

[sanctified Veteran]

Arrogance is not an excuse for blindness. Murdoch is not where he is because of sillyness.

Also, Youtube is so big now that I dont think it will affect them very much. Everyone I know around where I live know about youtube without necessarily knowing myspace.

[Jase]

if they want to fix somthing why not do a god damn update of the site, i mean Ajax anyone? or even some CSS?, DIV's?..

sigh, myspace is a good website.. its just the users overdo it with the crap they put on their profile..

[Randolph]

sigh, myspace is a good website.. its just the users overdo it with the crap they put on their profile..

Quoted for truth. (Y)

[a_witko]

Myspace makes me cringe also.. only because people dont know html and their profiles look like crap! i think my myspace is what most should be like (view in firefox).. www.myspace.com/alekswitko ...or even better.

perhaps some templates and a ramped up account UI would be beneficial

[tiddlie]

Myspace makes me cringe also.. only because people dont know html and their profiles look like crap! i think my myspace is what most should be like (view in firefox).. www.myspace.com/alekswitko ...or even better.

perhaps some templates and a ramped up account UI would be beneficial

I'd vote even better :p

I think MySpace have gone one step too far now, and it'll be their downfall ultimitly. They seem to think they can control the userbase, but in fact the userbase control myspace.

We saw what happened last time they disabled YouTube embedding. What makes myspace think it won't happen again?